Operación Puerto (Operation Mountain Pass)[1] is the code name of a Spanish Police operation against the doping network of Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, started in May 2006, which resulted in a scandal that involved several of the world's most famous cyclists at the time.

Media attention has focused on the small number of professional road cyclists named, however sportspeople from other disciplines including football and tennis have also been connected with the scandal.[2] Fifteen had been acquitted by May 2007, while three had admitted doping or evidence of blood doping was found.[3][4]

In March 2004 in an interview with the Spanish newspaper Diario AS, Jesús Manzano exposed systematic doping in his former cycling team, Kelme. He detailed blood doping[5] as well as the performance-enhancing drugs he used while on the team.[6] The investigation and the allegations he made led to questioning of several members of the team in April 2004. These included Eufemiano Fuentes who was the Kelme team doctor, Walter Virú the doctor before Fuentes, and Alfredo Córdova who was working for Liberty Seguros-Würth but involved with Kelme in 2003.[7] An investigation began into the practices of Fuentes in early 2006 by the anti-drug trafficking arm of the Spanish Guardia Civil.[8]

Würth found a new sponsor, five Kazakh companies united under the name of the capital, Astana, and became Astana-Würth.[16] ASO withdrew Comunitat Valenciana's invitation, moving riders to send blood samples to be analysed to prove their innocence.[17] The Vuelta a España considered expelling the team.[18]

After El País published details of Operación Puerto, Spanish riders boycotted the Spanish National Road Race Championships, which was cancelled after 500 metres.[19] ASO wrote asking Astana-Würth not to take part in the Tour de France, which the team ignored. Jan Ullrich, linked to Fuentes by the newspaper, threatened to sue El País.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said Astana-Würth were to be accepted in the Tour. The Spanish authorities lifted the secret of summary two days before the start of the 2006 Tour, formally involving all 56 riders found in Fuentes' lists.

Because Ullrich and Óscar Sevilla were in the lists, T-Mobile suspended them.[20] The example was followed by Ivan Basso's Team CSC and Francisco Mancebo's AG2R Prévoyance. ASO demanded all riders involved be withdrawn by their teams, even though Astana-Würth had received the support of the CAS.

The day before the Tour, Astana-Würth yielded to pressure. Five of their riders had been excluded by ASO for involvement in the scandal, leaving only four of the six riders required. Francisco Mancebo, fourth the previous year and involved in the case, ended his career, according to his directeur sportif Vincent Lavenu. As a result, none of the riders who finished in the top 5 of the 2005 Tour de France started in the 2006 edition.

On 3 July, Würth also withdrew sponsorship of the Astana team. They had planned sponsorship only if it were not excluded from a race.

Six days later, T-Mobile fired Rudy Pevenage, directeur sportif, because he was also involved. On 21 July, the team suspended Ullrich and Sevilla, effectively sacking them. On the same day, Spanish cycling newspaper Meta2Mil listed codenames used by Fuentes which had not been deciphered by police.

In November 2006, El Mundo[citation needed] claimed that an anti-doping laboratory in Barcelona which analyzed 99 bags of blood plasma seized in Operación Puerto found "high levels of erythropoietin (EPO)". This suggested athletes working with Fuentes had been boosting their performance in ways other than blood doping. El Mundo suggested those implicated had delegated their cheating to Fuentes, and would not have been able to control the level of EPO they were taking.

After studying the Barcelona lab's report, El Mundo described Fuentes's program as: riders would visit Fuentes a few weeks before a race and have blood removed. Fuentes would run the blood through a centrifuge, separating the blood plasma from the red blood cells. The cells would be re-injected shortly before competition, boosting resistance to fatigue. If haematocrit levels (volume of red blood cells) got dangerously high, they would re-inject plasma as well, enhanced with EPO, to dilute the red blood cells and avoid detection.

The Barcelona lab did not identify any athlete responsible for any of the 99 tested bags of blood.[21]

On 13 October, Ivan Basso was cleared by Italian authorities due to lack of evidence. Ullrich was cleared by the Spanish courts on 25 October. The judge ruled that Ullrich and Basso were put under investigation without proof of involvement.[24]

On 28 October, the RFEC closed disciplinary files against cyclists in the investigation. However, the RFEC will initiate disciplinary investigations on Manolo Sáiz.[25]UCI president Pat McQuaid was reported to feel let down by authorities in Spain. He hoped teams would require cyclists to submit DNA samples to clear their names.[26] The investigations into Spanish riders were suspended.[27] On 7 March 2007, the case was dropped through lack of evidence of crime.[28]

In January 2013, the Operacion Puerto trial went underway, and Eufemiano Fuentes offered to reveal the names of all the athletes who were his clients. Julia Santamaria, the judge presiding the trial, told Fuentes that he was not under obligations to name any athlete other than the cyclists implicated. Fuentes stated that he supplied athletes in other sports with drugs and said: “I could identify all the samples [of blood]. If you give me a list I could tell you who corresponds to each code on the [blood] packs.”[31]

Alejandro Valverde – the source of blood marked VALV.(PITI) (Piti being believed to be the name of Valverde's dog at the time).[42] Valverde was suspended from racing in Italy from May 2009, and in May 2010 a two year suspension, backdated to 1 January 2010, was applied.

Ivan Basso – Basso's contract with CSC was terminated by mutual agreement on 18 October 2006.[43] On 27 October 2006 the case was dropped by the Federazione Ciclistica Italiana due to lack of evidence,[44] and he was then employed in December 2006 by Discovery Channel.[45] On 24 April 2007 Basso was suspended by Discovery Channel when the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) reopened his case. On 1 May 2007 Basso requested to be released from his Discovery Channel contract. This was granted.[46] Basso attended a hearing on 2 May,[47] and on 7 May 2007, admitted that he was Birillo.[3] Basso was suspended on 16 May 2007.[37]

Fränk Schleck - Schleck admitted transferring nearly 7000 euros to a bank account held by Dr. Fuentes, but denied any doping or personal contact with Fuentes.[48]

Jan Ullrich - DNA tests confirmed that the 9 bags that were marked Jan, number 1 or Hijo Rudicio (Son of Rudy) all contained Jan Ullrich's blood.[4] An alleged doping plan was published in the newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, where Ullrich's suspected doping during the first week of the 2005 Tour de France was described. In 2012, Ullrich admitting to cooperate with Dr. Fuentes saying it was a mistake.[50]

Tyler Hamilton - at the time of the initial investigation, Hamilton was suspended for a prior doping offence. Politiken, a Danish newspaper, published details of alleged doping diary of Hamilton during the 2003 season when he rode for Team CSC. It described intake of EPO, growth hormones, testosterone and insulin on 114 days during the 200 day season of 2003.[51] According to allegations originally published in El País, Hamilton is to have paid over €43,000 to Fuentes and that in 2003 Hamilton took erythropoietin, blood transfusions, growth hormone, a hormone taken by menopausal women and anabolic steroids.[52]

Jörg Jaksche - at the time of the initial investigation, Jaksche rode for Astana-Würth. On 30 June 2007, Jaksche admitted to Der Spiegel that he used Fuentes' services. He said that he was Bella, or number 20. Jaksche had been under suspension by Tinkoff Credit Systems since May.[30]

On 5 July 2006, Fuentes was indignant that only cyclists had been named and said he also worked with tennis and football players.[2] On 27 July 2006, IAAF was assured by Spanish prosecutors that no track and field athletes were involved.[56] On 23 September 2006, former cyclist Jesús Manzano told reporters from France 3 that he had seen "well-known footballers" from La Liga visit the offices of Dr Fuentes.[57]

In May 2007 Sepp Blatter, president of FIFA, at a World Anti-Doping Agency meeting in Montreal, was reportedly interested in the contents "of the Puerto file".[58]Le Monde had reported in December 2006 that they had possession of documents of Fuentes detailing "seasonal preparation plans" for Spanish football clubs FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. These plans did not specifically name any players.[59] This news seem to be only rumors, since the French journal lost its trials in 2009 and 2011 against the FC Barcelona because he could not produce any proof of its allegations. In the ultimate judgement, on 14 November 2011, it was condemned to pay 15,000 euros of indemnity for "using false and unverified facts".[60]